Really glad I wasn't assigned the turkey...

Not that a lot of knitting went into Thanksgiving, but still.  Of all the times of year when you find yourself staring at the embarrassment of riches known as way the crap too many leftovers, Thanksgiving definitely ranks among the top offenders.  And all I had to deal with was dessert.

I admit, I come from a long tradition of too-much-fooders.  My ancestors would've seen a spread that didn't dwarf everybody seated at the table as a disgrace.  And as for the friend whose family I spent the holiday with, well, to quote "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" on this one, she could pluck me like a chicken.  There was turkey, juicy and done to perfection; stuffing drowned in turkey au jus; mashed potatoes with bacon and Gorgonzola; brussel sprouts with bacon; enough cranberry sauce to eat up with spoons.  I'm probably forgetting something, but you get the idea.  And then there was pie.

Now, I've only done sweet potato pie once before in my life, and that was completely off the cuff and without a recipe and came out a bit heavy on the sweet potato.  So I was perfectly willing to try the version suggested to me, which comes from Smitten Kitchen.  Add a sprinkling of ADHD and a lack of buttermilk (let's mix Greek yogurt and 1% milk and see what happens!), and voila new go-to pie recipe.  I even did the homemade flaky crust...sort of.

Trouble is, as a "dinner for one" sort of person, normally, I know what fits into a standard 9-inch pie crust.  2 medium sweet potatoes, 3 eggs, and 3/4 of a cup of buttermilk...won't.  Even after I ate the evidence that I'd come out with way more than 1-1/4 cup of sweet potato mash.  The pie turned out lovely:

Unfortunately I still had a bowl full of (quite yummy) leftover pie filling.

And that was when it hit me: thanks to the whole egg (including whipped egg whites), I had mixed together all the ingredients necessary for a souffle, mousse, or pot de creme.  Honestly I wish I'd come to that realization Thursday afternoon when the oven was still hot and the filling still completely fresh.  Still, no harm done.  This morning, out came the ramekins and the hot water bath, pre-heat oven to 300 degrees, fill the ramekins, place in pan of hot water, and pop these babies in for 40 minutes.  It comes out about the consistency of (slightly chunky thanks to the damn sweet potato) creme brulee, so really you should resist the urge to gobble up immediately and instead break out the sugar and blowtorch.  Just sayin'.

Yeah, really glad I didn't have to deal with the turkey....